I cried again this morning. Not for me mind you, my life has turned out to be more than I ever could have hoped for. I am married to a wonderful man, have a great set of girlfriends and two wonderful children, a boy 16, who is all boy, and a girl 17 who is sweet, smart and capable.

I hesitate to use the word adopted, since they are my children, but I want you to know that I have traveled a long and sometimes eventful road to get here.

What brought on this morning's crying jag was a story in our hometown newspaper about a transgendered person who lives in our town who was beaten brutally over the weekend, and is in the hospital in critical condition. The police caught the perpetrators in the act, and took them to jail. A couple of drunks who had tried to rape someone that they had thought was physically female and when they discovered differently, they tried to kill her. The newspaper quoted them as saying "Served it right, trying to trick us that way" Two strikes against them, I hoped that they would put them in prison and throw away not the key, but the entire prison cell that they were in.

I had thought that people were becoming more educated than this, but I should have known based on how the world treated me. The news account I had just read made me realize how blessed I had been, and how easy my own transition was when you compared it to others. I had much to be thankful for.

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Christmas was always wonderful at our house, both of my parents loved Christmas and well, let's face it they were the quintessential Christmas/Holiday junkies. We went to bed on Christmas Eve with the entire inside of the house undecorated. We had Christmas lights outside the house. My dad had this thing about decorating the outside of the house. No, No, I don't think you have the proper image. My father turned the outside of our house into the North Pole. Growing up in Northern Michigan, we could almost count on snow for the holidays, almost, and so my dad would decorate the yard with animatronic elves, an entire Santa Family, a huge Garden train, which went around the yard and a Christmas tree that he decorated with vegetables to feed the deer. He also kept a nativity scene right in the front of our yard. When asked if that didn't conflict with the other parts of Christmas he would answer, "I don't want anyone to think that the fun aspects of Christmas in anyway denounce the reason for the season." He would tell us, that we were "fundamentalist, Christians, but there were many folks who gave themselves that label, but forgot who/what Jesus really stood for. Too many bigots hide behind religion, but don't know the person of Jesus". It took me a few years to understand that, the Bible, and God played an important part in our lives. My own journey, my parents reaction to it, made me realize that God had truly blessed me. On the other hand, the reaction of some "Christians" to me, made me realize how right my father was.

Christmas day had us getting up and noticing that the entire house had been decorated, top to bottom. It wasn't until later in my life, that I realized how much work and effort went into this. We always got three presents each, and one big one from Santa. My parents didn't go crazy, but we got nice gifts. You almost always got what you wanted, sometimes stuff that you didn't realize how cool it was until a bit later in the year. The three present tradition came from the wise men giving Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh to the Christ Child. We would spend the morning eating breakfast and opening gifts. The afternoon we spent at a homeless shelter giving out gifts and food, one of the parents would stay home and cook. When we returned home from the Shelter, the whole house smelled of turkey, mashed potatoes, and freshly baked bread and cookies. I grew up with parents taking turns at chores so that there was very little "gender specific behavior", except for spiders, my mother hated spiders, my dad didn't like to kill them, he felt that God had made them beneficial to kill real pests, and so he would put them outside.

I remember one Christmas we woke up, and the house looked like a postcard, I had just turned 6 and my older sister Melody 8. I had just unwrapped one of the best gifts I had ever received, although you may not think much of it, it was an easy bake oven. I liked cookies, still do in fact. My sister made the comment, "Hey isn't that for me? Only girls get easy bake ovens?" My Dad just laughed and said, "Although, it is pink, guys can cook too." My mom smiled at me, I spent the morning making chocolate chip cookies, and my sister played with me, before this I had been "one of those boys". Now, she liked to play. I used to pray every night that I would wake up a girl. For some reason, I learned early on, that hiding this was a good idea. Other children, didn't have a problem with me, they weren't old enough yet, but I had started to realize that boys and girls were different. I couldn't put my finger on why, but I had always thought I was a girl. It had just started to connect, but I wanted to be a girl so badly. This Christmas was the turning point, my sister began asking me to play dolls with her, and house. Sometimes I would be her sister, my Mom laughed out loud, and said "You look so cute.." when she found me dressed in one of my sister's outfits at a tea party. She assumed it was a phase that I was going through and that I would outgrow it. As I got older, I realized that while my parents may be ok with me, that it wasn't "normal" in society to want to be the opposite gender and so I hid.

God had made me a very fast runner, so although very small, most of the kids couldn't catch me. I got picked first for tag/running games, and avoided physical contact sports. I received my first painful life shock when I was 10. My sister and I had just finished playing house. I had a pair of her jeans and a tank top t-shirt on, and was wearing one of those hausfrau fru-fruey aprons on, when the doorbell rang. It was our cousins, the twins. Jesse, and Jaime. Jesse, the boy, and Jaime the girl often dressed alike, and were a bit stiff. They didn't play much, and mostly due to their parents, were very "formal". They both laughed at me,and from that day on, I was "Staci the girly-boy". I overheard their mother talking to my Mom, "Don't you think he is a bit old to be playing house?, and wearing "girls clothes?" I have been proud of my parents reactions to things over the years, but this one stands out in my mind, since I think it was the moment that my mom voiced recognition of who I might be. She laughed a bit, and said, "What if he grows up to be gay or transgendered? Isn't he still my child? Am I not supposed to love him?" My aunt pursed her lips, and said, "That's against God's Law." "Really?" my mother said. "In the Bible doesn't it say, "Love the Lord God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself, and in doing this you will be fulfilling the law and the prophets?" "Ummm...yes, but..." "So, I didn't see how this hurts anyone?" "Aren't you worried that he will grow up confused?" "Confused about what?" "Gender is an odd continuum, not some black and white or binary element". "Are women who cannot have children still women?" "What about intersexed children? Which gender are they? There are many people/children who don't fit into a particular peg., There are many folks who grow up thinking that they are one gender and realizing that they are not. Technology today allows people that are conflicted to change their physical sex to match their gender" "What!?" my aunt cried, "that is just sick/perverted" "Oh, please" Mom said to her. "Are you saying that God makes mistakes?" My aunt said in her strict no-nonsense voice. I cringed a little when I heard this, as I knew that she was laying down the law. My Mom laughed in her musical laughter, everything is wonderful voice, "No, not at all, but are you saying that God doesn't allow challenges, differences in our lives?" "What would you do, if you son wanted to be a girl?" my aunt sneered in the same legalistic voice. My mother sighed at her, "I would love her, welcome her with open arms, get her all the help she needed to successfully change her gender, and have as happy and productive life as possible." "Oh, yes, I forgot, you are the wacko liberal sister, who believes that God will help everyone" "Why is that "wacko?" My mother said surprised that her sister was so confrontational over this issue. "Well, everyone knows that kids that wear clothes of the other gender, or want to be the other gender are just perverts and grow up to be sex offenders" "Goodness" my mother said. "Do you really believe that?" "Most certainly. Men who want to be women and wear Women's clothing are just sick, perverted abominations" She said in a contemptous tone. My mother didn't say anything, and then changed the topic. "Would you like some tea?" "Yes, I guess so." I don't think my aunt knew what to do then, my mother was the master of peaceful deflection of topic. She had realized that my aunt had made up her mind, and that the facts wouldn't change that view of the world. Meanwhile, back at the easy bake oven, the twins wanted me to make cookies. So I did.

After my aunt and the twins left, I went to talk to my mother. "Mom?" "Yes", she said in her best whatever you need, I love you Mom voice. "I overheard you and Aunt Anita talking about what I was wearing today. I've never said anything before, but I pray every night that God would make me a girl. Is that wrong?" She sighed, "I know, I know, I have heard some of those prayers, I just want you to be happy. You are a little young though, to be making those kinds of decisions. Take it a day at a time, and keep praying" "Do you think I will wake up one morning as a girl?" I said hopefully. "It is certainly possible, as God can do anything he wants, I think more likely that if you really, really want to be female, that there are other steps you will have to take." "Oh." I said trying to wrap my 10 year old brain around "What other steps", I might have to take. "We'll talk about this more later today, after dinner. I want your Dad to be part of the discussion" "But, won't he hate me?" I said. "What makes you say that?" She asked "Don't you think that we love you no matter what?" "I guess so." She laughed, "Oh, honey we love you always, no matter what." I went back to my oven, time to make the brownies.